Yahoo passes Google in search index capacity

When most people think of Web search, they think of Google. But Yahoo said Monday that it has completed a vast expansion of its search engine index and now encompasses almost double that of its main competitor.

Yahoo's Tim Mayer said Monday on the company's Search Blog that it now indexes more than 20 billion documents and images. That's almost twice the 11.3 billion Google publicly says it currently spans.

Of the 20 billion elements in Yahoo's database, 19 billion are documents, 1.5 billion images and more than 50 million audio and video files, the company said.

Until now, Yahoo didn't normally talk publicly about the size of its search index, but according to the Associated Press, company observers had pegged the number at no higher than 8 billion documents.

"This is a great reason for more people to check us out," Yahoo Vice President of Products Eckhart Walther told the AP. "We are more comprehensive than anyone else out there."

To be sure, Yahoo's supplanting Google as king of the search indexes--in size at least--is a surprise, and gives it a lot of grist for touting its search feature as a solid alternative to Google's. That has been a public relations challenge for Yahoo since it unveiled its own search feature last year after years of licensing Google's.

"The Google brand stands for search and (Yahoo's) strategy has been to undercut that brand," Forrester Researcher analyst Charlene Li said to the AP.